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I flick my phone’s dim light around and start back toward the staircase and jump so high my phone clatters to the floor. The puny beam washes the immediate area around me in dim white light. Not enough to see the features of the hulking man rising from the armchair in the far corner of the entryway, but enough to tell me I don’t stand a chance.
The room is silent as I face off with the shadow. “What the fuck do you people want?” I shriek.
Waiting for a knife to be driven into my midriff in the form of an answer isn’t my style. Bare feet hit hardwood as I bolt for the front door but the large shadow moves faster.
I’m hauled against solid rock and my lungs clench closed.
Warm lips press against my ear and my body does an impression of a steel rod.
“Krasivaya siren, what did you do to your beautiful hair?” That voice has my chest easing enough to where I don’t pass out. When I draw in air, I get a lungful of smoky orange with an undercurrent of bourbon.
Maxim.
My scared brain didn’t recognize the formidable shoulders or the unique calluses on his thumbs and index fingers. But now that I’m more pissed than scared I can’t help but think I should have known he would eventually find me. And if he could, so can the East Syndicate.
Maxim pins me to his chest with one arm while he reaches for tumbling strands of hair falling over my shoulders. I try to bat his hands away but you can imagine how that turns out.
He only mutters something in Russian and continues doing whatever the fuck he wants. Because he’s freaking Maxim Novak.
He rubs the ends of my hair between two fingers and considers it like it offends him personally. “What does it look like? I dyed it.”
His forehead wrinkles with a scowl. “It looks like you dunked your head in a barrel of oil,malyshka. Didn’t the stylist tell you raven black is not your color?”
My mouth drops open at his frankness. “Excuse me? I don’t think I asked your opinion of my hair color choices.”
But he’s right. No way I’ll ever say that out loud, though. I went with anything that would help my honey-red hairnotmake me stand out like a shiny beacon in the Florida sun. Besides, L’Oréal’s Black Sapphire was on sale.
The puckered scowl on his face drives another nail into my wounded pride.
“It will wash out,da?”
“Nyet, asshole. I plan on keeping this color for a long time.” I bought a Russian English dictionary. I’m learning one word at a time.
Low, rumbling laughter shakes his chest and I’m not all too sure he’s not considering spreading me out over his knee for a good spanking with how his eyes turn glacier. The tick in his jaw is erratic and the hand he has on my hip tightens—both in total contrast to the laugh. I wonder if his victims have a hard time reading him too? Right before he kills them.
Morbid thoughts I don’t want to consider.
Maxim laughs thinly this time. “We’ll see about that.”
His voice is all business and he acts like it’s perfectly normal to break intomyplace to harass me about my new hair color, but when I glance into his face the heat in his eyes is undeniable. I’m thrown back to our one-night stand and the fire that blazed through us in those few short hours still holds the power to steal my breath.
The hand holding me in place teases over my tummy and I catch myself from sighing with pleasure. I’ve craved to feel his touch for seven long days. Now that his hands are back on me it is a real test of my willpower to deny myself what I want.
Don’t break, Vannah. Don’t break.
“Maxim, you bastard. Let go of me.” My voice shakes with forced confidence. I shove at his chest but he doesn’t budge. The smirk on his face is slapable but I’m looking to not piss him off so that he kindly leaves after he finishes manhandling me.
“Bastard?Da, my siren. But I’ve been called worse. But coming from you is cute.” He walks us to the front door and sets me down to where I have little room to escape. When I try to cover myself, he brushes my hands away and trails the tips of his fingers over the roundness of my hips, and then finds the edge of my panties. I try to move away but his large form blocks my way.
“Maxim, what the hell do you want?” I huff with exasperation. He’s wearing a sexy pair of black dress pants and a simple pullover that has found every single groove on his torso. I force myself to keep my gaze trained on his instead of cruising over all that muscle on display.
“To play a little with my captive but we don’t have time for games.”
“You’re crazy,” I say flatly.
“Da.”
He braces an arm on the wall by my head and leans into where his lips move over the heated flesh of my shoulder. I tremble, my pulse quickening. “You thought you could run away from me. You were wrong.” He places a kiss like a full stop after each word driving me insane.
